


With a Heavy Heart

by Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Heavy Angst, Like incredibly heavy, Lot of blood, Murder, Violence, but if Im crying y’all are too, im so sorry, implied suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha/pseuds/Smooth_Real_Cha_Cha
Summary: “If you were one of my men, I’d have you shot.”“If I was one of your men, I’d shoot myself.”Ironwood is confronted by his mistakes on a dark night, haunted by a jovial, creeping laughter and haunted, empty eyes.Someone has come to make good on their promise.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen & James Ironwood, Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi (Implied)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	With a Heavy Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hi welcome to angst town, population? Me.

Ironwood sat at his desk in his office as the clock ticks, each second seeming longer and more laborious than the last. His heart had never felt so heavy, his body so mechanical. His dreams were being crushed before his eyes, fear cooling like a serpent in his gut, but it would not dissuade him.  
He was doing what was right, what he believed in.  
What else was there to do?  
A sudden noise startled him from his thoughts. A high pitched, maniacal laughter, broken echoes reverberating over the stone tiles.  
Ironwood grabbed his gun.  
“Tyrian Callows! Show yourself!”  
The laughter continued, and Ironwood felt himself growing uneasy.  
Interspersed with the high-pinched tone were the whisperings of a very familiar tone, a deep rough burn of a chuckle, the sounds of unsteady footsteps as they stumbled, heels clicking across the marble floor, and the faint but omnipresent tang of bloodshed and cheap alcohol in the air.  
Whoever it was knocking at his door, it wasn’t the infamous serial killer.  
It was a different beast.  
The footsteps became louder, faster, but no less unbalanced, as if that drunken stumble became a battle charge of pure rage.  
Ironwood barely has time to brace himself before Qrow burst into his office, a jovial laughter on his lips, and swung his sword with drunken malace almost cleaving straight through Ironwood’s head.  
“Qrow!” Ironwood sucked as another crash reverberated through the room. Qrow has cleaved his desk straight through, and was advancing on Itonwood as he retreated towards the door, swinging wildly. “What the hell are you doing!”  
Qrow spun wildly, with that dammed laughter still in his lips, and Ironwood blocked his strike easily with his gun, allowing him a good look at the other man’s face.  
He froze in disbelief.  
Ironwood has seen Qrow in many states in his past, hopeful and happy, drunken and morose, lethargic and depressed. He has seen the man at his highest highs in the heat of battle, and at his lowest at the funeral of countless comrades and friends.  
But he had never seen Qrow’s eyes so... empty.   
“Qrow, what happened—“  
It was that second of hesitation that was his undoing. Qrow made another wild, stumbling arc with his sword-  
And Ironwood felt a white-hot, unfathomable pain stab his gut. He screamed, but Qrow’s gloved hand covered his mouth.  
“Shh—“ he mused, those dammed, empty eyes boring holes into his soul. Ironwood’s heart had never felt so heavy, his body so fragile, as if his skin had been replaced with tin, and his heart with lead.  
“ ha! James! I just want y-you to know, ha” Qrow plucked Ironwood’s gun from his belt, his laughter seemingly slurring into his words. “ heehe. Do you remember! Do you? When I said what I’ll do if I became one of your men, your little pawns? Ha!”  
Ironwood has never felt so heavy, his mind so weak.  
He croaked out: “are-are you with her?”  
Qrow raised the gun to his own temple, his grin slipping. “No. Nonono. He wouldn’t have wanted that. This-this is personal.”  
Ironwood could barely keep himself awake. His willpower was fading.   
“Don’t you remember James?” Qrow’s voice taunted him, his empty eyes still haunting him even as consciousness faded. “It was funny! I said I’d shoot myself!”  
Ironwood feels the wet, sticky slide of his own blood, pouring onto the marble, smells the cloying scent all around him. He hears the click of the safety being released, a bang! Then the soft thud of a body hitting the floor.  
He can barely understand it, barely muster up the willpower to care.  
His heart, until it’s last beat, has never felt so heavy.


End file.
